Oh and get the best HDD you can if storage is a concern - the HDD on the X41 is not easily upgradable. But you can certainly upgrade the RAM - have a look on Crucial's website, you can select your exact model and it will show you the correct RAM upgrades, just get yourself a 1GB stick and clip it in.

I cannot share your concern. There ae Toshiba 40, 60, and 80 GB 1.8" drives widely available at such places as www.cdw.com, www.directron.com, and www.zipzoomfly.com... also 60 Gb by Apricorn, Aegis, and 60 gb and 80 Gb at Hitachi... with more 1.8" drives out this month and next by Seagate, Fujitsu, and Samsung.
They are definitely not in many stores. But we have had no trouble getting them for our shop and for our customers. And I have not seen any smaller than 40 or larger than 80 GB.
We carried our X-41 to the base camp of Everest... and into China and Iraq. It handled cold and jarring without problems.
More small laptops are on the way... as the manufacturers gear up. With them will come the perpendicular technology and the 100 GB drives.
The BEST 1.8 HDD are still the Toshiba, and I would pick the 60 over the 80, as the 80 is still too new to know.

The notebookreview website said that the X41's 1.8" hard drive is proprietary in design and cannot be upgraded past 4,200RPM of speed...

Do you know then if the X41 can be upgraded with a Toshiba 1.8 HDD? If so, then there's no problem - I was just going on what notebookreview said and guessed that its not upgradable - do you know specifically if it is?

Even if there are these problems, the X41 is a great machine. Not my personal choice but for someone who was carting a machine around a college campus and doing all sorts of studenty things, it would be ideal.

Personally, I go for a more conventional 14" or 15" model, with 2.5 HDD. I usually swap this out for a Seagate - the biggest I can get - right now that's a 160GB 2.5 HDD from Seagate. When paired with a memory upgrade, this can really speed a laptop up.

Using HD Tune 2.10, we found that the X41 drive offers an average 14.1 MB/second transfer rate and an access time of 24.0 milliseconds. These results are not exactly outstanding in comparison with many of today's Tablet PC's and notebooks that have 5400RPM or 7200RPM drives, however with IBM's proprietary 1.8" drive, there is currently no other option to upgrade at this time.

I think it's saying you can, provided it's a proprietary one from IBM. Anyways, I think any HDD above 20GB will be OK, since I'll only be keeping songs and movies on it, not to mention all my assignments. I'll be getting it by mid-June hopefully, right in time for my Summer session to start. Thanks a ton guys, you've been a great help. :grinthumb

It is true that 1.8 drives are 4200 rpm, but the size of the drive allows faster access than it did on the old 2.5 inch 4200 rpm drives.
This is considered a good thing, as far as I know, and was designed in to provide longer battery life and more robust and reliable drives. So far the 7200 rpm drives only last about half as long as the 5400 rpm drives. The slower the drive, the longer the life in the bearings, and the less power that is required.
Most everybody I know uses the adapter that fits in the optical drive bay to add a second hard drive. I use a 160 GB, 5400 rpm drive, and backup the 80 GB Toshiba drive I have in the X41.
The X42 will take any of the three Toshiba drives, the Hitachi, or the Apricon. I have not tried the Aegis. So I expect the 1.8 drive is used to save weight and battery life. It sure worked great in the backpacs my wife and I used going up to the base camp.
I would not be surprised if a new 1.8 drive with a proprietary design came along to run at 5400 rpm and 120 GB.
HP and Sony now have laptops with this "proprietary" 1.8 drive... It is partially a contest of words... but also probably has something to do with how data is retrieved and other functions. I have not yet looked it up on the IBM site.

It is true that 1.8 drives are 4200 rpm, but the size of the drive allows faster access than it did on the old 2.5 inch 4200 rpm drives.
This is considered a good thing, as far as I know, and was designed in to provide longer battery life and more robust and reliable drives. So far the 7200 rpm drives only last about half as long as the 5400 rpm drives. The slower the drive, the longer the life in the bearings, and the less power that is required.
Most everybody I know uses the adapter that fits in the optical drive bay to add a second hard drive. I use a 160 GB, 5400 rpm drive, and backup the 80 GB Toshiba drive I have in the X41.
The X42 will take any of the three Toshiba drives, the Hitachi, or the Apricon. I have not tried the Aegis. So I expect the 1.8 drive is used to save weight and battery life. It sure worked great in the backpacs my wife and I used going up to the base camp.
I would not be surprised if a new 1.8 drive with a proprietary design came along to run at 5400 rpm and 120 GB.
HP and Sony now have laptops with this "proprietary" 1.8 drive... It is partially a contest of words... but also probably has something to do with how data is retrieved and other functions. I have not yet looked it up on the IBM site.

I think it's saying you can, provided it's a proprietary one from IBM. Anyways, I think any HDD above 20GB will be OK, since I'll only be keeping songs and movies on it, not to mention all my assignments. I'll be getting it by mid-June hopefully, right in time for my Summer session to start. Thanks a ton guys, you've been a great help. :grinthumb

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Are you getting the tablet model or the regular? Personally, I'd trust the regular more, but the tablet would be useful in lectures.

On a similar laptop quest. Any maker offer brighter screens vs. others. Considering HP's and Thinkpads right now. Occasional outdoor use or in the car would be nice, but have trouble seeing the screen on current Inspiron 8600. Also, AMD vs. Intel chips? Any clear winner/loser?

You are asking for trouble and a lot of different opinions here. Intel chips are better than AMD because they run cooler. AMD chips are the best choice if you have a laptop with three or more cooling fans, like some of the HP units.
Each major manufacturer offers a number of different screens... and charge according to brightness and highest resolution. The Thinkpads generally have three levels of screens.
Screens are the most likely component to fail. Cheaper screens may be bright in some cases, but have lower resolutin. And will fail much sooner...
Sony VAIO's are beautiful laptops, with very nice screen, but the screens fail too often, and are extremely expensive to repair. HP screens are generally solid as are Dell... if you buy in the top half of the model range. Thinkpads vary by model. You will find that they are a bit more conservative in brightness, but more accurate on colors and image... T-41, T-42, T-43, T-60 all have a variety of resolutions. Get the highest resolution you can afford.... Those models, along with the X-30, X31, X-40, X41, X-60 and soon to be X-61 are the favorites of the long-term Thinkpad owners. Most would not part with their machine undeer any circumstances... but good ones are available from insurance companies, banks, and high income corporations which give they key employees every one or two years... and sell the others on eBay and other such sites.
You Inspiron 8600 has a decent screen noted for reliability. But Inspirions also dim the screen to conserve battery power.
All good computers adjust their brightness and out put downward anytime the laptop is on battery instead of wall power.
One smart thing to do before you plunk your money down is to go online to check for parts availability for whatever wish machine you are considering. We have a terrible time in our repair shop getting parts for a number of computers... Sony VAIO being among the most difficult and costly. If a large number were made, there will be more parts. But check the parts supply houses to be sure you can get a part when the worst case scenario takes place.

Still true that the 7200 burns out faster on an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad X60s? My boss is doing mainly database work, Excel, word processing and email. Nothing graphics-intensive or gaming. Should he go for the faster rpm speed or this not necessary with what he's doing? And would the disk fail even on the higher range model he's considering? Thanks so much!

7200 rpm drives might fail sooner, though I would like to see actual data on this, as it were they are here to stay in the moblie world we live in. look at this, it might help clarifiy some things. http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/33C6A76DF9338B0A86256D34007054C0/$file/Why7200MobileHDDs.pdf

I have a 7200 that I put into my 3 year old toshiba. No problems and it's here with me in the 115F degree heat of Iraq. While my hooch might not be that hot, the temperature can fluctuate considerably. I have had no issues really.
My 4200 speed drive was unbearably slow. Now I have had the new drive in for about a year now.